Babylon campaign, scenario #1

[K>]

People who design this mission deserve to choks by all ♥♥♥♥ in world.

[Stiflers_Mom]

The first mission in this company has already been discussed here before, look for it. And Yes, for new players, it can seem very difficult.

[Jamin1976]

The Holy Man campaign? I tried it on "Easy" today and still got obliterated!

[Solwitar]

The AI can always see you and play smarter so the first mission is now hardest.

[FTWO]

Main thing is do not attempt to convert any of the (Red) AI, they are super aggressive and have a number of Axeman that will kill your Priest. Go to the East of the map and convert the (Yellow) or (Brown), I can't remember what the other AI color is, it's been a long time since I did this Campaign. But they are easier and only have Villagers. Now the thing is, at times, when you convert those on the East side, they might send their Villagers to attack your Priest. Rarely does this happen but sometimes it does, so I highly advise that after each successful conversion, save your game, then attempt another conversion, and repeat.

[Jammin]

I agree with op its a terrible mission and if you haven't played the updated version give it a try and you will understand. Check out GruntGG channel on youtube he plays the mission on hardest difficulty. He also states in a pinned comment that he plays on the easier difficulties and finds no difference in the difficulty of easy to hardest just so you don't feel bad about the difficulty. It apparently is possible but yes it is annoying and unfair.

[Hevi]

You can cheese it by walling red player. I had to do it this way because i attacked them way too late and they had like 3-4 of each buildings, including town centers.

Every time i got one of them destroyed, they would just build new one somewhere else. So i just took them out little by little and build more wall as got further into their base.

[Krein]

After getting your first villager wall your priest in with houses near the berry bushes the yellow player uses, they'll walk around the houses trying to attack the priest but won't attack the actual houses. Not only will you get a steady supply of villagers, but you will disrupt yellows economy AND preserve the berry bushes for yourself. And yeah red is quite aggressive, I managed to pop a few towers before the first assault so my vills would be running in circles while producing axemen to stop the reds in tower range. After that fortify the shallows and you should be good to go.

[cs188]

I finished this mission by barricading the river pass, eventually starving the Sumerians of resources. Then since I had tons of food and wood (but no gold or stone) I picked away at their towers with waves of axemen and scouts, supported by chariot archers. The enemy does constantly build priests and chariots which is annoying, but this is overcome once they run out of gold. A very difficult one indeed, but not impossible.

[Thisguy2023_TTV]

I found it useful to save and then type photon man in the chat box a couple times. After your angels of death serves some much needed retribution go back to your save point and continue without cheat

[Lotor13]

Again

In the original game it was okay, but this "definitive edition" remaster broke the difficulty in SG campaigns

[Slaktarmaskinen]

I have had a really hard time with this one as well. The difficulty was really amped up compared to the previous campaigns with this one.

I converted yellow villagers and built my base on their side of the river.
I quickly went to the priests starting location and walled of that section (along with the entrance over the river to mine and yellows side of the map). This meant i got a huge stockpile of gold but more importantly stone as well.
The reds couldnt build any guard towers (in a previous attempt i did not do this and they filled their base with towers). They constantly build chariots, both melee and ranged, as well as priests. So I build my own priest armada, along with my walls and guard towers.
I opened a hole in my walls to let in as many of reds villagers as possible and then closed it up and walled them in, so they would take up population slots for red.

I was in luck too, yellow managed to build a dock in the beginning which i used trading ships to trade gold with as well.

I slowly creeped myself into reds base and walled it off with my own walls, eventually i managed to portion off their base and slowly get them.
It took some two hours and 13 minutes or somesuch on that scenario (i didnt do it all in one go). This was a horrible scenario, and i hope i do not have to play one like it again.


I saw an old youtube playthrough of this map in the old version of AOE, and it seemed as if the starting priest was a hero unit. In this version however it was just a regular priest :/
Yellows villagers tend to behave really oddly, sometimes they all swarm me and sometimes not. It seems as if you can get one or two villagers before the ai is set to swarm your priest when you try to convert anymore. Or something like that, i have no idea. It just behaves oddly.

I tried converting a red villager once and it proved insanely resistant to my priest, i havent tried it anymore. Maybe another tactic could be to convert red first? (that is what they did in the playthrough video i saw).
A link to the video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aWBx8qOQcjI

The word of choice for this scenario would be perseverance!

Good luck! (I'm copying this to another thread as well, whatever I can do to help)

[.]

I just tried it. So ridiculous! I reach to kill the easy guy, but the tough one... it's so ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ stupid ! I have 4 barracks and 4 archery 10 meters away from his base and he is yet rolling over me with hundred of horses ! WTF PLEASE?!

[Crypto Gamer]

I have completed a few campaigns already all on "hardest"(tutorial,greece,babylon,yamato and "first" rome and short"Punic Wars")And Babylon 1,Babylon 7 and Rome 1 and 2 and Punic wars 2 were by FAR the hardest missions so far.Many times first/second missions being MUCH harder than later ones.Difficulty is all over the place,many times last missions being very easy compared to first one.

In the babylon one I had about 5-10 towers camped outside of his base and my units constantly streaming in.After 20 minutes of killing his units he will start use use axeman mostly.It is also important to deny resources near the player monk starting place,there is tons of stone and gold there,it has to be walled and towered.Bablyon mine stone faster and have stronger walls and towers meant to be abused.Otherwise mission will take about 30-45 minutes longer.
Also in most campaign missions if you try to build a tower inside what the enemy campaign AI considers "his base" he will try to rush it with
all units including villages,so you can kill a lot of eco easier,many times worth the tower being very likely destroyed(or canceled).

There is a VERY HUGE RNG( in conversion times,some I just save and reload for better rng early on.
In babylon 1 convert food villagers,monk hotkeyed,convert as soon as faith is up,villagers build TC near bushes you need villagers numbers asap.The first attack is the hardest to defend.If monk dies early-midgame(where he can still heal or convert)or "easy" base can build a tower just restart.Just reload any earlier save.

Also easy difficulty is very bugged it has almost the same eco as difficulty 3,but about as aggresive as difficulty 5(if not more),making early start hard.....on easy........
So use difficulty 2 or 3 for easier play.
Also the campaign AI even on hardest can run out of resources,but usually has more starting gold in his base,than the player.AI also rarely has more than 20 villager eco on hardest,player can have 25-30 and out eco him+then use "strong" units%towers.
You can check statistic to see his/your gold mined and highest villager number.

[Grimjaeden]

Originally posted by Ka:

People who design this mission deserve to choks by all ♥♥♥♥ in world.

You ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ right ! No excuse for this stupid RNG mission.

[TheBabylonian109]

Just completed this in three hours on hardest difficulty (as the username may suggest, this is my home campaign in all of the AoE franchise). Akkadians are easier to convert than the Sumerians because historically the Babylonian leaders liked to style themselves as the "Kings of Akkad" even into Nebuchadnezzar's (he has chad in the name!) time and their written language was Akkadian, so that is a nice little historical touch there.

As for the gameplay itself, after converting the Akkadians and rushing to the Tool Age for stone walls it definitely seems like a siege is unavoidable (again assuming you don't rush the Sumerians). Wall and tower up the obvious choke point, as they never use siege so don't have a prayer of making it through the defenses. War galleys are generally more effective than everything else, although on hardest it does seem like they spam lots of chariots, chariot archers, a few slingers, and priests (the latter of whom are particularly annoying). In my play through they seemed to run out of gold and wood around the same time, which I found strange as I thought their gold access would be more limited. Eventually I resorted to mass chariot rushing their butts with four stables on their side of the Euphrates, wearing them down to the point that they were making only clubmen and scouts. Once you see those units the end is near. Think I missed a timing too, as it seems to take them a long time to build towers... but they will eventually, as my chariots found out the hard way!